Guinea Pig
by RedHatMeg
Summary: When Glickerstein was still alive, he was sometimes using Igor as his guinea pig. Now the story repeat itself - but this time the one who is experimenting on Igor is no other than himself! How his friends will react on this news?


**My first fic to _Igor_. ****Sorry that Scamper and Brain gets a bit OOC in few parts, but I believe that it would be their reaction on the fact that Igor was testing things on himself. And one more thing - I didn't like that Igor became Malaria's new leader (it was really too much, they should stop on him being a respected scientist and considering making a puppy for Eva), so in this story he's an ex-mayor, devoted to his science.**

**Guinea Pig**

Igor tackled his sleeve and took the syringe with transparent liquid. He quickly found the vain and slowly closed the needle to his skin, dipping it into blue line on his arm. First there was only a small pain in the place where he injected himself. He put the syringe on the table, tackled down his sleeve and waited.

And waited…

And waited…

And waited…

He expected to feel some kind of reaction of his immunological system on foreign objects inside his blood, but he was feeling perfectly fine. No stomachaches, no fever, no dizziness, nothing. Maybe he was too impatient, after all the first symptoms could appear some time after contagion. After two minutes the waiting started to annoy him, nevertheless he sat at his desk and write down in his journal:

_The subject was injected with half-ounce of serum at 4 pm._

He put the pen beside journal, closed the book and sat comfortably in his armchair, sighing deeply. He hoped that he will be able to find something interesting. He was aware of the fact that his friends would be worried about him or even angry with him if they found out what he had just done to himself. But Igor knew he had to do it. For science, for Malaria's citizens, for the world… There was just no other way.

Lots of painful memories from times when Glickerstein was still alive, flashed in his mind. Igor closed his eyes.

_"Stay still, you dumb hunchback!"_

_"But master…"_

_"No buts! We need to finish this!"_

Suddenly Igor heard knocking to the door and his eyes snapped open. He rapidly stood up, threw the syringe to the drawer and without further waste of time ran down the "secret stairs" to open the door. Scamper, Brain and Eva entered the hall, holding the grocery. Igor watched as they walked in and all together turned to him. Scamper was gloomy as always, Brain put down the bugs he had in hands and drove to the living room, and Eva gave Igor soft smile and leaned upon him to kiss his forehead. He smiled too.

Eva directed to the kitchen. Igor took Brain's bugs and fallowed her, but all of sudden he felt a bit dizzy. Nevertheless he decided to move along.

"How was your day, Eva?" He asked.

"Very nice, thank you." She replied, already in the kitchen. They've both put the groceries on the table and Eva added: "We managed to prepare the prospects, but we still need someone to play Guido's mother. And how about you, darling?"

For a few seconds Igor was hesitating what to say. He couldn't tell her the truth, that was clear, but he didn't want to lie to her. He finally decided to say something that wasn't a lie, but wasn't revealing much, either.

"I was doing some research. I hope I'll succeed."

And right after he said it the dizziness attacked again. This time so hard that Igor swayed a bit and had to lean on the kitchen table to keep his balance.

_So it begins…_ – passed through his mind. Unfortunately there was no clock to check the time, but it wasn't the biggest problem of his. He had to return to his laboratory before something ill-timed will happen. Something which will certainly complicate the whole situation.

"Igor, are you alright?"

"Yes, yes." He waved his right hand and moved towards the opened door. "I'm only tired a bit, that's all."

"Go to bed and have some rest." She requested.

"I probably will." He said as he was leaving the kitchen.

He was going to return to the lab through the more civilized way – by stairs in the hall – but dizziness was more disturbing with every passing second and when Igor put his foot on the first level of the long stairs, he not only had problems with standing straight and see clearly his surroundings, but also was panting like after long jogging. Nevertheless, he took another steps in attempt of climbing up the stairs. He regretted it when his body was too weak that he was standing still only because his hands was clenched on the rail. But they started to weaken too and he couldn't help but let his body fall on the stair levels before him.

He was able to register that someone's hands caught him in the midway and that person helped him stand up. The hands were too small and too thin to be Eva's or Brain's, so Igor assumed it was Scamper.

"Let me guess: you've experimented with some suspicious herbs again, am I right, genius?" The rabbit said, but began to lead him up the stairs.

"I was just working too much that's all. By the way: what time is it?"

"Time for you to buy the watch."

"Please, Scamper, I have to know."

"Fine, fine. We've returned at 4:03 and when I saw you climbing the stairs it was 4:07, so now it should be 4:08."

_So the first effects of my serum appeared at 4:05…_ For a few seconds Igor wondered if he did the right thing experimenting with his own body, but he his train of thought had been cut when he collapsed on Scamper and everything went black…

* * *

><p>The first thing he noticed, when he came to his senses, was the intense feeling of heat. His blurry vision started to clear up and after few seconds he realized that he was lying in his bed. A moment later Igor remembered the dizziness, the stairs, Scamper and himself asking rabbit about the time. He felt horrible. What if he won't survive this experiment? Or if he will become blind, or crazy or will be degraded into vegetable?<p>

But there was no turning back. Now, when he was injected, he had no choice, but observe his own body, eventually trying to find the cure for his own invention. And all this had to be kept in secret from Scamper, Brain, Eva and public relations.

Igor slowly, with much effort, sat up in his bed. He had to write down all the observations in his journal, but first he had to check if he will be able to walk at all. Fortunately his lab was in his bedroom, so he didn't have to go to some far room just to take few notes. He moved the cover and carefully put his feet on the floor. Then he slowly, clutching to the bolds of bed, stood up. He still felt dizzy, but it was nothing like a dizziness from earlier, he could stand it.

He released the bolds from his grip and kept moving. He took few steps, sat at the desk and opened the journal. He grabbed the pen. For a few seconds he was gathering in one piece all the information he received during these few hours. Finally, he wrote down a note:

_4:05 – first signs of dizziness recognizable in subject. The symptoms started to increase. Subject had problems with climbing the stairs, its vision became blurry and it was panting. Around 4:08 the subject lost its consciousness and came back to its senses at…_

Igor looked at the small clock on his desk and checked the time. It was half past five. He raised his eyebrow and whistled. He was sleeping really long.

_…at 5:30._

He closed the journal and suddenly realized that he didn't know what to do next. He leaned his elbows on the armrests and made a pyramid from his fingers, deepening in the reflection. He could feel the heat inside his body, which was reminding him that he had to check the fever. He stood up from the armchair. Somewhere here should be a thermometer. After all he was using it last time. After few minutes of walking around his room he finally found it lying under his desk. But it needed to be cleaned.

Igor came out from his bedroom and directed to the bathroom, however, in the midway to his destination, he had been stopped by Brain, who drove out from the "directing room" and quickly approached the hunchback.

"What are you doing?" He screamed and stopped almost inches from Igor. "You have a fever, so you have to stay in your bed and rest!"

"Don't worry, Brain, I will, but first I have to clean this thermometer." The inventor showed the tool to Brian and smiled.

"Give me that!" Brain quickly grabbed the thermometer and turned into bathroom's direction. "I will clean it. You go to bed!"

"Fine, fine."

And Igor – just like that – returned to his room and to his bed. Brain came to him a minute later and violently put the thermometer into Igor's mouth.

The temperature was 200 degrees in Fahrenheit's scale.

"Dude, what were you doing when we were out? Walking on Sahara in your thickest coat?"

"Leave me alone, Brain. I have a headache."

He hadn't, but he wanted to note another observation in his journal and Brain's presence was really disturbing.

But before he could say something else, his stomach groaned loudly and Igor felt strange bitter taste in his mouth. He was hot and this time it wasn't because of fever but because of the feeling of upcoming event. He rapidly stood up, covering his mouth with hand.

"What's that, Igor?" Brain looked at him with concern. "You're pale. Is something wrong?"

"I need to go to bathroom." He replied with much effort, trying to hold on. "I'm going to throw up."

Brain was shocked for a moment, but then he quickly opened the door. They both ran to the bathroom and the hunchback could easily hear abrupt steps of Scamper. Igor throw himself to the toilet and finally vomited. Half minute later the throwing up stopped. Igor was now leaning upon the toilet, panting. Brain was silent, but Scamper couldn't suppress the urge of mocking remark.

"Oh, Iggy, I hope you didn't eat the leftovers of Evil Lasagna."

"No, Scamper. I'm pregnant." Was Igor's reply.

He sighed deeply, moved away from the toilet and lied flat on the cold floor, still breathing heavily.

"You know, Igor." Brain began with wide grin. "Funny thing, but it reminds me the times when Glickerstein was testing his chemicals on you."

Igor's eyes snapped open and he quickly looked at them. For a brief moment he was worried that they know something, but then he appeased himself. After all it was Brain we are talking about…

"Yeah." Scamper added. "The guy was cruel in the basic level of relations, but when it came to experiments on humans…"

For a moment Igor was only staring at the ceiling in silence. Another wave of unpleasant memories attacked his mind.

_A new needle stroke in into the same place of Igor's arm as the previous four. This time Glickerstein had to hold the limb harder, because Igor was shaking. He would struggle more if he wasn't tied into operation table. He was sick of this all. Now he only wanted the experiment to stop, so he could go to his room, fix his wounds and just try to fall asleep despite the pain in his stomach._

_"Don't be such a baby, Igor." The voice of Glickerstein said. "After all, if he didn't struggle during previous four tries, I wouldn't have to repeat the experiment…"_

Igor didn't know how he managed to survive this all without permanent scars on his psychic. Maybe it was thanks to Scamper and Brain, who were good friends and helped him go through it. Or maybe it was the fact that these experiments were extremely rare, because Glickerstein was more into technology than into biology or chemistry.

"Come on, Igor." Scamper's voice brought him back to present. Igor looked at him. The rabbit took his hand. "You have to come back to bed."

With his help the hunchback stood up. He let Scamper and Brain lead him to his room, but his own mind was absent for a moment. He felt like he was repeating the scheme, but this time it wasn't Glickerstein who was putting him into this situation. This time Igor was doing it all on his own. He was hurting himself just like Glickerstein.

Scamper and Brain put Igor to his bed. The hunchback turned his back on them as they were leaving. However, Scamper saw the journal, lying in the middle of Igor's desk. Something wasn't right. Normally Igor was keeping his journal in the drawer unless he was working on something. But there was no machines or tools on the table so… He looked at Igor who was still turned back to them. The rabbit got suspicious.

But he didn't say anything. He and Brain just left the room, however, he hadn't closed the door completely. He left himself few inches of chink. Brain was a bit surprised by his actions, but the curiosity took better of him and he started to observe Igor's room too (Scamper was thankful that his annoying companion stayed silent, because he didn't know how he would explain Igor that they were spying on him).

After a moment of waiting Igor turned his face on desk. Next he sat, stood up and approached the table. When he took a seat, he opened the journal and started to write something in it. Few times he stopped the noting to think about something, but then he was going right back to writing. Scamper narrowed his eyebrows. _What are you working at, Igor?_

Igor noted his previous observations. It seemed that for now he was only experiencing the side effects and he was afraid that they might be the only effects of his serum. He was lucky enough that so far no one got the idea to look into journal which was lying on the plain sight all this time. He closed the book and hide it in one of his drawer, then he took some paper and pencil and started to scribble something.

Scamper moved away from Igor's door and sat on the floor. The scene he just saw was actually normal. Igor used to work even when he had a flu. It seemed that he felt a bit better and decided to occupy his mind with something, despite the fact that few minutes earlier he vomited. Still, Scamper had some bad feelings about this.

* * *

><p>Waiting for Igor to fall asleep was annoying and Scamper would probably miss this moment, if Brain hadn't prove himself useful for the first time in… let say quite long. Nevertheless the hunchback had finally fell into sweet slumber at ungodly late hour of 2 am.<p>

Scamper opened the door without a crack and entered Igor's room with all stealth he could achieve. The only light was coming from moon hanged in the sky, so for a few seconds the rabbit had problems with recognizing the general outlines of furniture. But his eyes got used to the darkness and he could finally see the desk. Scamper took one last glance on sleeping Igor and then turned back to the drawer where the target of his mission was.

He slowly approached the desk. His paw caught the drawer and carefully pulled it to his side. Scamper looked inside and smiled lightly. There it was. He took it and was going to close the drawer, when his eyes caught the outline of syringe. For a moment he hesitated if take it too, but he heard loud snore of Igor. No, he couldn't waste the precious time. He came here only to barrow the journal. Besides – any information about this needle's containing was probably already in the book.

He left the room as smoothly as he entered it. Brain was already waiting for him in the hallway.

"Do you have it?" He asked.

"Duh, and what do you think I'm holding in my hands?" The rabbit replied. "Come on, let's see what's in there."

They sat in the "directing room". Scamper opened the journal and they both slowly started to read. The note from this day wasn't very long, actually it was taking barely two pages. However, it contained enough information to make Scamper sweat.

_The subject was injected with half-ounce of serum at 4 pm. 4:05 – first signs of dizziness recognizable in subject. The symptoms started to increase. Subject had problems with climbing the stairs…_

The scene at the stairs flashed before Scamper's eyes. He remember how Igor asked him about time and how he had problems with breaching and keeping himself straight.

_Subject had problems with climbing the stairs, its vision became blurry and it was panting. Around 4:08 the subject lost its consciousness and came back to its senses at 5:30. Few seconds later the nausea occurred and subject vomited. Subject also had a 200F fever. In next few hours before the subject went to sleep, the fever had gone down only to 180F and few times subject felt a small dizziness. The observations will be continued._

Scamper closed abruptly the book and deepened into director's chair. He looked like the thing he just learned, hadn't moved him even a bit. However, Brain was completely different story.

"Oh, God! Igor is experimenting on himself!"

"Thank you, Captain Obvious. I didn't think of that." Scamper said with sarcasm.

"I can't believe. After all he went through with Glickerstein… What we are going to do, Scamper? What if he will do something to himself? I'm too young for him to die."

For a moment the rabbit was only sitting in silence, his whiskers moving from side to side in deep reflection. Suddenly he jumped off from the chair and smoothed his fur like he was trying to rid off of some dirt. Then he turned to Brain and said:

"We have to do what good friends do."

* * *

><p>Igor had been woken up by sun rays coming through his window. He felt well-rested and full of energy. The fever was gone and it seemed that at least for now he didn't have to worry about the rest of symptoms. He sat up and was going to write it down in his journal when he saw Scamper, Eva and Brain, leaning on his desk and looking at him, Scamper with disappointment, Eva with worry, and Brain… well, it was hard to tell…<p>

Eva was the first person who spoke:

"Igor, how could you do this to yourself?"

For a moment Igor was watching them with shock, but then he smiled nervously.

"I don't know what are you talking about."

"About you making test on yourself, that's what." Brain snapped.

How did they know? Never mind. He decided to play dumb.

"That's ridiculous."

The rabbit chocked to catch Igor's attention and drew out the journal. Scamper opened the book and started to read out loud:

"_The subject was injected with half-ounce of serum at 4 pm. 4:05 – first signs of dizziness recognizable in subject. The symptoms started to increase. Subject had problems with climbing the stairs…_" He stopped, closed the journal.

Igor's gaze changed from sheepish to tense.

"How many times I told you not to touch my journal?"

But Scamper was unmoved. He came closer to Igor, leaned closer to his face and gave him the gloomy look.

"Look what you've become. You're not a human being. You're a subject."

"Don't you dare judge me. I really need to test this serum. I know what I am doing."

"Oh please. Have you already forgot how it's like to be a guinea pig? Have you forgot about injections served ten times a day, dizziness, vomiting, sleepless nights and almost unbearable pain? Because we didn't."

"We were with you every time when you suffered because of these experiments." Brain cut himself in. "They were rare, but when they occurred, we were watching."

"I needed to check this serum!" Igor said firmly.

"Then why you didn't test it on me?" Scamper exclaimed. "I'm immortal, in opposite to you. I would survive any test and told you everything."

"And if you asked nicely, I would be your subject too." Brain added. He didn't sound honesty, so Igor assumed that Brain wasn't entirely sure about his statement.

"I would do it too." Eva gave her boyfriend a soft smile.

"You don't understand!" Igor rapidly stood on the floor. "I wouldn't dare to make a subjects of any of you. I would never make experiments on my friends. If I was going to test my serum on anybody, it was going to be me and no one else." He got quiet and waited for their response. When it hadn't came, he added: "Besides, look at it in practical way. Brain was out of question right from the start, because he is… well… just a brain in the jar. And you both" He first looked at Scamper, but then moved to Eva. "Your bodies aren't normal. If I was trying to inject you, Eva, the needle would broke on your arm. And you Scamper…" Igor once again turned to the rabbit. "How would I know that my serum can be poisonous, if you're immortal? I'm normal person and I was reacting on this serum like normal person would. Also that way I could observe everything closer."

He gave a soft sigh and sat on his bed. Then he looked at his friends with sadness.

"So it was both rational and moral to make myself a guinea pig."

"And what if you killed yourself in the process?" Brain asked.

"Yeah, it would be a shame to die in such stupid way." Scamper's face returned to his usual bored expression, but in his voice there was some kind of… resignation? "Think how it would look like in the newspaper. _The great inventor dies from his own formula_."

Igor's eyes looked down. For a long moment he was only observing the floor in silence. Eva sat beside him and embraced him with her thinner arm. Igor felt nice warmness and closeness when she did it. He looked at her and she was watching him with sad smile.

"Who would direct my movies or help me with my roles if you were dead?" She said, stroking tenderly his cheek. "I admire your devotion to science, but is this serum so important?"

For a moment he was still silent, thinking about everything. He perfectly understood what his friends wanted to tell him. He liked his life and didn't want it to stop. But he had to do experiments. That's all he was – a scientist. He would die, if he couldn't perform science. Still, where was the limit of scientific curiosity? Where was the border he couldn't pass?

Finally he looked at his girlfriend, gently took her hand off from cheek and put it on his knees. Then he looked at her and for the first time this morning a soft grin graced his face.

"Yes it is, Eva." He said quietly, but didn't stop smiling. "But I promise you that I will be careful. If I will see that this experiment is going too far, I will stop it immediately."

She didn't say anything, but her smile widened.

"And for now, genius" Scamper started "you can invest some money in laboratory rats, like normal scientists usually do."


End file.
